Congressional lawmakers are dealing with difficult arithmetic as they hammer out a price range plan to finance President Donald Trump’s agenda.
Republicans have to unencumber roughly $4 trillion to pay for renewing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire on the finish of the yr. Trump has vowed to not contact the most costly authorities packages, together with Medicare and Social Safety.
He’s been much less clear about his plan for Medicaid.
On Wednesday, he endorsed a Home GOP plan that cuts not less than $880 billion from, very probably, Medicaid — the federal-state medical health insurance program for Individuals with low incomes or disabilities.
As my colleague Phil Galewitz reviews, adjustments to develop Medicaid have grow to be entrenched in most states — and their budgets — over the previous decade. Hospitals, which not solely deal with but additionally make use of numerous Individuals, are reaching out to Congress with issues.
Medicaid can also be widespread. A January KFF ballot discovered that about 3 in 4 Individuals view this system favorably. So Republicans must be strategic about cuts.
However first, let’s again up. What’s Medicaid? My colleague Sam Whitehead and I revealed a helpful explainer this week.
Medicaid, which turns 60 this summer season, was created as a part of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Nice Society” technique to assault poverty together with Medicare, the federal medical health insurance program for these 65 and older.
Greater than 79 million folks obtain companies from Medicaid or its intently associated Youngsters’s Well being Insurance coverage Program. That’s about 20% of the nation’s inhabitants.
About 40% of all kids are lined by Medicaid or CHIP. Medicaid additionally pays for 4 in 10 births and covers prices of caring for greater than 60% of nursing residence residents.
State and federal spending on this system reached $880 billion final yr.
Again in Washington, Phil writes that the GOP is contemplating a number of methods to shrink Medicaid.
They might scale back how a lot cash the federal authorities sends to states, leaving state leaders to resolve whether or not and the right way to plug price range holes.
One concept Republicans are overtly speaking about is imposing work necessities. Most adults enrolled in Medicaid are already working or most likely could be exempt as a result of they’re at school, are caregivers, or are disabled.
However, as Sam and I report, state experiences with work necessities present they make it tougher for even eligible folks to get protection.
On the coronary heart of all of it are key questions concerning the function of presidency in folks’s well being: How huge ought to the U.S. medical insurance coverage security internet be? Who deserves authorities help?
And, maybe most urgently, the place will those that may lose Medicaid go for protection?
We’d like to talk with present and former personnel from the Division of Well being and Human Providers or its element companies who consider the general public ought to perceive the impression of what’s taking place throughout the federal well being forms. Please message KFF Well being Information on Sign at (415) 519-8778 or get in contact right here.
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is among the core working packages at KFF—an unbiased supply of well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism. Be taught extra about KFF.
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